Full name: A Plague of Caterpillars: A Return to the African Bush

Author: Nigel Barley Year: 1986 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Travel, Anthropology, Non Fiction, Anthology Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780670807048 9780140095562 0670807044 014009556X

Nigel Barley returns to Cameroon on hearing that the elaborate and fearsome Dowayo circumcision ceremony, performed at six or seven year intervals, is about to take place. Yet, like much else in this hilarious book by the author of The Innocent Anthropologist, the circumcision ceremony proves frustratingly elusive, partly because of an extraordinary plague of black, hairy caterpillars.In the meantime, witchcraft fills the Cameroonian air, a man is lied to by his own foot and an earnest German traveller shows explicit birth-control propaganda to the respectable tribespeople. Beneath the joy and shared laughter in this comic masterpiece lies skilful and wise reflection on the problems facing people of different cultures as they try to understand one another.